Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi applauded Pakistan's efforts in the war against terrorism, but expressed concern to the Islamic nation's leader over nuclear proliferation, officials said.
Koizumi, who held private talks with Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, also said Japan would resume loans to the South Asian country which were suspended after Islamabad's 1998 nuclear tests. The two governments also issued their first-ever joint declaration on bilateral cooperation after 53 years of diplomatic ties, pledging to deepen and widen relations.
Yesterday, Koizumi left Pakistan for Luxembourg for talks with EU officials. Koizumi, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Luxembourg, was expected assert that the proposed lifting of the EU arms embargo on China would affect the security balance in East Asia.
Before leaving Pakistan yesterday, Koizumi praised the country's efforts in the war on terror. But he also "expressed concern over the spillover of nuclear technology."
It was unclear if Musharraf offered Koizumi new information gleaned from the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has confessed to supplying sensitive technology to countries including North Korea.
Koizumi said that he had told Musharraf that "Japan has been striving for elimination of nuclear weapons and for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Japan -- the only country which has suffered nuclear attacks -- is a neighbor of North Korea and has been involved in six-nation talks, aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
The joint statement between the two nations said Japan would extend new loans to Pakistan worth ?16,400 million (US$156.5 million), mostly for fixing a canal system in eastern Punjab Province.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS